Elizabeth Day Dechant, BSN, RN, CWOCN, CFCN
Birmingham, Alabama
Elizabeth is a Certified Wound Ostomy Continence Nurse at Children’s of Alabama, where she provides wound treatment recommendations and wound management for both inpatients and outpatients with acute and chronic wounds. She provides staff education on skin and wound care, ostomy care, and pressure injury prevention. Elizabeth works diligently with the hospital’s Pressure Injury Prevention Team to track and reduce hospital-acquired pressure injuries.
Elizabeth graduated from the School of Nursing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham with a BSN in 2005. She gained nursing experience in the neurosciences unit (ICU), home hospice care, and the pediatric cardiovascular ICU before becoming a Certified Wound Ostomy Continence (WOC) Nurse in 2014. She attended the WOC Nursing Education Program at Emory University for this specialty. She also earned a certification in foot care and regularly volunteers to provide foot and nail care for Birmingham’s homeless population. She is a member of the Central Alabama WOC Nurses’ Association, the National WOC Nursing Society, the International Society for Pediatric Wound Care, and the Vizient Innovative Technology Contracting Council. Elizabeth has presented on the topics of pressure injury prevention and wound management at numerous pediatric conferences at Children’s of Alabama. She previously earned a BFA in studio art from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and worked as a fine artist for several years before becoming a nurse. She believes that wound care is an art that requires a unique combination of creativity and evidence-based practice.
Recently, Elizabeth has published an article with Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Clinics of North America titled "Considerations for Skin and Wound Care in Pediatric Patients", which can be found here.
Elizabeth Day Dechant, BSN, RN, CWOCN, CFCN
Hospitalized patients of all ages are at risk for iatrogenic injuries. Peripheral intravenous extravasation and infiltration (PIVIE) injuries are one of the most common types of hospital-acquired injury, with the potential to cause long...
Elizabeth Day Dechant, BSN, RN, CWOCN, CFCN
The benefit of Negative Pressure Wound Therapy (NPWT) as an “active,” adjunctive treatment is well-established. Evidence has shown that wounds treated with negative pressure granulate faster than wounds managed with traditional...
Elizabeth Day Dechant, BSN, RN, CWOCN, CFCN
Diaper rash, more officially known as incontinence-associated dermatitis (IAD), affects hospitalized and incontinent patients of all ages. In my years as a WOC Nurse in a pediatric hospital, IAD has been by far the most frequently...